Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 2.djvu/148

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SOLDIERS AND SAILORS the curtain fall. Paul Jones died at Paris, at the age of forty-five, of a dropsical affection, July i8, 1792. The person of Paul Jones is well known by the numerous prints devoted to his brilliant exploits. You will see him, a little active man of medium height, not robust but vigorous, a keen black eye, lighting a dark, weather-beaten vis- age, compact and determined, with a certain melancholy grace. He was one of nature's self-made men ; that is, nature gave the genius, and he supplied the industry, for he knew how to labor, and must have often exerted himself to secure the attainments which he possessed. He was a good sea- man, as well as a most gallant officer ; sagacious in the application of means ; vain, indeed, and expensive, but natural and generous ; something of a poet in verse, much more in the quickness and vivacity of his imagination, which led him to plan nobly ; an accomplished writer ; and as he was found worthy of the warm and unchanging friendship of Franklin, that sage who sought for excellence while he looked with a kindly eye upon human infirmity, we, too, may peruse the virtues of the man and smile upon his frailties. TECUMSEH* By James A. Green (1776-1813) I T would be a difficult matter for a well-read American to recall the names of more than four or five nota- ble Indians, leaving, of course, con- temporaneous red men out of the question. The list might comprise Pocahontas, best known, probably, for something she did not do ; Powhatan, that vague and shadowy Virginian chief ; King Philip, who had a war named after him and so succeeded ir having his name embalmed in history ; Pontiac, whose great conspiracy Park- man has made immortal, and Tecum- seh. But, of them all, Tecumseh is easily foremost. He was a man who, had he been born to great position among civilized nations, would have stamped his name and fame upon the world. He was not a mere savage of the ordinary type, bloodthirsty, brutal beyond description, going upon one aimless raid after another to glut his passion for rapine and murder. These savage traits Copyright. 1894. by Selmar Hess.